


Sage & Sunshine

by chemical_darkblue



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Ashton is very happy, Depression, F/M, Original Character Death(s), but it's right at the beginning, sort of, very sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 20:31:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6674512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chemical_darkblue/pseuds/chemical_darkblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>someone's dead, someone blames themmself and someone just trying to make everyone feel okay</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sage & Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> sage  
> 1  
> a : wise through reflection and experience  
> b archaic : grave, solemn  
> 2  
> : proceeding from or characterized by wisdom, prudence, and good judgment 

Everybody dies.

It’s common knowledge, common sense. Everyone is born and they live and they die. The only thing is that, despite knowing this, we don’t realize it actually happens until someone close to us dies, we don’t really understand the full effect of death until someone else dies. We know death is a real thing, a real occurrence, but we don’t want to recognize its presence.

If you’re truly lucky, you only have to experience someone dying once. I thought my time was when my grandmother died. I was only six years old, I don’t remember much about her other than going to her apartment to play Donkey Kong in her living room. I know a lot of people were sad, especially my mom. But I wasn’t because I didn’t really know her. All I knew was that it meant no more Donkey Kong. Sure, I went to a couple funerals in my life, but I couldn’t feel incredibly broken up over it because I hadn’t known the people. When my great uncle passed, I knew it meant no more bad jokes at family cookouts. When my great cousin died, I knew it meant there would be no one to dress up as Santa’s elf at our Christmas parties.

It is different when you really know the person. It is different when you are close to the person who has passed. It makes you realize why people don’t enjoy recognizing the existence of death. It hurts. Especially when it is someone you love, someone who is family or close to it.   
That is how it was with Sage.   
We had grown up together, since we were six, shortly before my grandmother passed. I was a shy child, I kept to myself, didn’t like talking to a lot of people. Sage was the opposite. She loved the attention, she wanted everyone to be friends. She was never shy to speak her mind. We grew up on the same street, she spent most of her time with my family at our home. Our entire lives, I only really spoke to her and one of our mutual friends, who lived across the street from her. At the end of fourth grade, our friend moved away. It was just the two of us. Then she moved across the country when her parents split up, just a year later.

It hurt when she moved away. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was lost. I had not known how to really socialize without Sage there with me. I felt like I wasn’t myself without her. She came to visit the summer after. I was able to be with her twice in a month. She didn’t return for a while. When she did, I had no idea it would be the last time I saw her.

I had received the news of her dying through a fellow childhood friend, who had called me the morning after my first year of high school ended. He said she was in a car accident and that he was sorry. He didn’t know what else to say.

I was numb.

It wasn’t like I didn’t cry, because I did. Cried enough tears to recreate the Nile River. But it hadn’t sunk in until the funeral. They played her favorite song and to this day, I cry when I hear it. I returned to school that year in September. I withdrew from my supposed friends, kept to myself. They had only spoken horrible things of her once she had passed. Then they didn’t understand why I was acting distant. Even my mother began to worry. That in itself was insane.   
She normally tried to not involve herself. In March of that year, she asked me if I needed to see a doctor. She assumed I was depressed, which I thoroughly denied. After a few more months, she broke. I had just came home from school, it was the middle of May, almost time for exams. My mother stood in the kitchen, eyes trained on only me. She sternly told me that she knew I wasn’t happy at our house, with her and my father and sister. She told me that because I was no longer happy there, I could leave. I had assumed she meant I could leave for a few weeks, stay at a family member’s house. She proved me wrong, telling me to pack. It was my luck that she had a dear friend who lived halfway across the world, in Australia, who was willing to allow me to live with him. I had no further say in the matter.

Days after my second year of high school ended, I was headed to the airport, four bags of my belongings in the trunk. My mother rushed me out of the car, into the airport. She didn’t stay long enough for me to even board the plane but I was okay with it. Hours later, the plane landed in another country. The airplane felt cramped and stuffy, I got off as quickly as I could.

I don’t know who I expected the family friend to be like, but definitely not like David. He stood just inside the airport, waving to me. He was slouched against the wall in khaki shorts and t-shirt. I had expected him to be at least in his fifties like my mother was, but he wasn’t quite that old. Once he greeted me by calling me “kid” repeatedly and retrieved my luggage, we made our way outside. He offered to help me get into his red Colorado truck, tossing my bags into the bed of the truck. It took nearly half an hour to get to his house. It was obvious he had money. How could he not? His house was large enough and was in walking distance of the beach, just across the street from it. I was silent when he led me inside. The house seemed fairly normal, fairly basic. He had the minimal amount of furniture and a few paintings here and there. He told me the bedroom I would stay in was upstair, first door on the right. I followed his directions, two bags in tow. I found the room.

The wall of the room were just white, which I was fine with, and had sleek wood flooring. There was a break in one wall, where another door was. It led to a reasonably sized balcony. Just a few feet from the door was the full sized bed, already covered in a dark blue comforter with a few mis-matched pillows thrown by the bedboard. Against one wall sat a large bureau, the wood on it black with white details on drawer handles. The room was magnificent, more extravagant than the room I shared with my sister in America, which really had just been a partially finished attic.

So, sure, maybe living in a whole new country wouldn’t be as bad as I had initially thought.

**Author's Note:**

> this whole thing is dedicated to my best friend, whom sage is very much based off of  
> thank you all for reading ❤️


End file.
